Policy Development Process in the AfriNIC service region - AFPUB-2007-GEN-002

The initial policy development process used by AfriNIC was meant to be a transitional process. Now that AfriNIC has been well established, it is being proposed to revise the policy development process to increase participation from the community in the process.

Proposed Policy:

The proposed policy development process (PDP) is described below:

1. A PDP Moderator Group (MG) will be set-up to moderate and coordinate the policy development process and discussions. It will consist of two members of the community. One AfriNIC staff will also be providing support to the MG.

Note: The two(2) Moderator Group (MG) members will be nominated by the community during a face-to-face (f2f) open public policy meeting for a defined period.

The two (2) MG members shall be nominated for a 3-year term. The first for 2 years and the second for 3 years. AfriNIC will nominate one of it's staff members to the MG.

2. Policies can be proposed in two ways: (a) Directly to the list by the author (b) Through the Moderator Group (MG) which would assist a member of the community in drafting the text for the proposed policy.

Note: Policies can be proposed by anyone from the community.

3. The proposed policy is then posted on the mailing list rpd at afrinic.net or any other appropriate mailing list. The mailing list is open to anyone from the community at all times, and anyone can join the list for discussion

4. The policy is discussed on the mailing list and amended accordingly following the discussions.

5. After at least 30 days of discussion and comments on the mailing list, the policy is brought to the public open policy (face-to-face) meeting for a final round of discussions before the community endorses or rejects the policy through consensus.

Note: Consensus is defined as general agreement of the group and is not measured by a majority. It will be the onus of the MG co-chairs to determine whether there is consensus or not.

6. If there is consensus at the open policy meeting, go to step 7 below. If there is not consensus, step 4 will be repeated.

7. A 15-day last call for comments on the policy will be announced on the policy mailing list. During this 15-day period, comments agreed upon during the open public policy meeting will be incorporated into the policy.

8. After the 15 days, the Moderator Group will send a report to the AfriNIC Board of Trustees (BoT) which should contain the following as minimum information - The date of the proposal - Short summary of the online discussions - Short summary of the face to face (f2f) discussions - Short summary of the Last-Call period - A recommendation of the PDP Moderator Group (MG) to the Board.

Note: The policy should be ratified by the BoT at the subsequent Board Meeting which should be held no later than 30 days after the last-call ends and implemented within 60 days after the BoTs' ratification.

Effect on AfriNIC

This policy will affect the current Policy Development Policy.

Discussions are taking place on the policy working group mailing list if you want to subscribe to the mailing send your subscription request to rpd-request [at] afrinic.net with 'Subscribe' as subject line